foreseen this natural event. Tuft tried to find something to say, but
failed, and glanced at Josephine. But she did not look as if she were
willing to help him.

For the fact that Edward and Ragni were now married increased rather
than diminished Josephine's bitterness. Although she would not admit it
to herself, her religious objections were a mere pretence. She was
jealous, jealous with the strange jealousy of a sister who wanted to be
all in all to her brilliant brother, and hated that another woman should
be more to him than she was. All her life had been centred on him. She
had married Ole Tuft, a poor peasant's son, because he was the bosom
friend of Edward. Her marriage, she thought, would connect them still
more closely. She wanted to live by his side, watching him rise into
fame as the greatest doctor in Norway. For young Kallem's masters had
predicted that he would prove to be a man of genius.

Possessing considerable wealth, he had taken up the study of medicine,
not as a means of livelihood, but as a matter of love and duty. Then,
six years ago, he had run off with old Sören Kule's young wife, and
Josephine's dream had come to an end, leaving her life little more than
a dull, empty round of routine housework.

This was why she now gazed with hard, cold eyes at Ragni. Edward Kallem
saw her look of wild hatred, and, taking his weeping wife gently by the
arm, he turned away, and led her from the house into the road.

Josephine went upstairs, and gazed from the study window at the
retreating figures. Her husband followed her, with a curious look in his
eyes. Neither of them spoke. In their hearts was raging a storm of
passion wilder than the anger which possessed Kallem, and the sorrow